“Its Going Down” (IGD) is an openly violent, anti-free market anarchist organization that works closely with CrimethInc. So why is IGD used repeatedly as a source by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)?

According to the IGD promotional video linked in the “About” section of the IGD website, “It’s Going Down” is “…creating a material force which can seize territory, defeat our enemies and the apparatuses of control and create different ways of being.”

Worth repeating:

“…creating a material force which can seize territory…”

Let that sink in.

WARNING: The following video includes harsh language and scenes of violence:

IGD is not a fan of the police or “capitalism.” Anarchism and Socialism/Communism, after all, go hand-in-hand.

IGD often condemns “liberals” for not getting on board with their violence.

In an IGD magazine linked on their homepage, IGD pleads to non-violent leftists to leave them alone in their violence:

“Let’s make a deal. We promise not to disrupt your Non-Violent Direct Actions and Civil Disobedience spaces. Hell, most of us probably won’t even show up. In return, the only thing we ask is that you stop coming into the space of a riot and attempting to control what is by definition an uncontrollable situation. Unlike you, we don’t want you to stop doing what you think is right and we’re not really interested in convincing you to see things our way at all costs. If, when it comes down to it, we just disagree on fundamental issues, then so be it. We’ll have to find some way of co-existing.”

Screenshot from “It’s Going Down” promotional video

The Southern Poverty Law Center

Gavin McInnes was clear that he wanted his “Proud Boys” to stay away from Charlottesville telling them that “[We] don’t allow racists in Proud Boys,” but this ridiculous Southern Poverty Law Center article still does everything they can to make McInnes the bad guy.

Hysterically, in the very same article displaying mental gymnastics about McInnes, the SPLC describes “It’s Going Down” euphemistically as “anti-fascist.”

Not only does “It’s Going Down” escape scrutiny by the SPLC as a hate group – not one “Antifa” group makes it on their list of “Hate Groups” – the SPLC uses the violent anarchist group as a source.

The SPLC has long been known for having vague, partisan criteria and non-specified qualifications for being the arbiters of what constitutes “hate,” but we do know what the SPLC does NOT qualify as “hateful:” The violence-advocating anarchists at “It’s Going Down.”

Screenshot from IGD website

The reason we know that the SPLC is cool with “It’s Going Down” is because they use them as a source in an article on “Unite the Right” leader John Ramondetta, a.k.a. Johnny Monoxide.

The SPLC links to “It’s Going Down” in the following paragraph:

Monoxide was very much on the liberal left of social issues and far from the Trump supporter he is today. After getting out of the Navy, he claimed to have been of the mindset that “dude, the government’s bad,” and stated that he “loved guns and [he] loved weed.” In 2011 he became involved with the Oakland contingent of Occupy Wall Street. The following year, he admitted, albeit reluctantly, to attending a Black Lives Matter protest in response to the killing of Trayvon Martin. He subsequently joined Facebook groups such as “Cop Block” and “Police the Police,” thus delving further into the social justice movement.

One would think that “It’s Going Down” would be ON the SPLC Active Hate Group List. But No. They are not only NOT on the SPLC Active Hate Group List, IGD is used as a source as if they were the New York Times.

Mark Bray

Mark Bray’s Twitter page as of August 31, 2017.

The “It’s Going Down” homepage features a video by Mark Bray titled “How To Respond To Free Speech Absolutists.”

Free Speech “Absolutists”?

Watch:

Mark Bray is a lecturer in history at Dartmouth. He wrote Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook and is clearly sympathetic to the violent movement. He was featured on a video linked at the It’s Going Down website attempting to make the case that violence is okay against white nationalists. But the truth is that Bray wants to “Smash Capitalism,” which is a common thread among anarchists and the Unite the Right leaders themselves.

What makes Bray’s appearance at It’s Going Down interesting is that he recently had a bit of a debate with SPLC President Richard Cohen, where Cohen denounced violence:

This author would submit that Richard Cohen should add “willingness to commit violence” as one of the elusive criteria for his hate group list. Doing so would quadruple his partisan list with communist and anarchist organizations such as By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), the Workers World Party (the Trotsky-Maoist organization whose members knocked over the General Robert E. Lee statue in Durham on August 13 2017), Refuse Fascism (a front group of the Revolutionary Communist Party) and an abundance of others that are nowhere to be found on the SPLC’s “List of Active Hate Groups.”

To put it in perspective, the SPLC using Anarchist literature as a valid source is like a conservative organization using KKK literature as a source. Comparatively speaking, how is “It’s Going Down” any different than The Daily Stormer?